Tokyo rejects China's air rights claim in East China Sea

Martin Fackler

Tokyo: Japan's foreign minister on Sunday refused to recognise China's newly claimed air defense zone over disputed islands, signalling that Japan would not back down as tensions increased in the maritime dispute.

The foreign minister, Fumio Kishida, was responding to a move by China on Saturday declaring an "air-defence identification zone" that would give it the right to identify and possibly take military action against aircraft near the islands in the East China Sea, which are administered by Japan but claimed by China and Taiwan. China's announcement appeared to be the latest step in what analysts have called a long-term Chinese strategy to chip away at Japan's claims to being in control of the uninhabited islands. Japan has long maintained a similar air-defence zone over them.

The disputed islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China in the East China Sea. Photo: Reuters

Mr Kishida called the Chinese declaration a dangerous escalation that could lead to what many military analysts most fear in the already tense standoff: a miscalculation or accident that could cause events to spin out of control, leading to an armed confrontation that could drag in the United States.

"It was a one-sided action and cannot be allowed," Mr Kishida told reporters, according to Japan's Kyodo News. It could also "trigger unpredictable events," he warned.

On Saturday, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel also warned in a statement that the US government viewed the Chinese move "as a destabilising attempt to alter the status quo in the region." He also reaffirmed that the United States would stand by its security treaty obligations to aid Japan if it were attacked.

For now, the United States and Japan seem to be trying to determine how serious China is about policing its newly declared air zone, or whether the declaration is actually a political gesture aimed at appeasing nationalist sentiments at home. However, it is equally unclear how far Japan would be willing to go in response if China does try to enforce it. Mr Kishida offered no indication about whether Japan would take any countermeasures, like increasing its own patrols in the airspace over the islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in Chinese.

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In an early sign of the dangers raised by the new development, Japan's Defense Ministry said Saturday that it had scrambled two F-15 fighters to intercept a pair of Chinese surveillance planes approaching the islands. It said the two Chinese planes turned back without incident.

By setting up a competing air defense zone, China may be trying to demonstrate that its claim to being in administrative control of the islands is as convincing as Japan's, Japanese officials said. They said China appeared to have a similar objective last Thursday, when Chinese coast guard officers boarded Chinese fishing boat in waters near the islands.

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When hailed by a Japanese coast guard vessel, a Chinese coast guard ship said it was monitoring fishing activities in what it called Chinese waters; the Japanese ship responded that the actions were unacceptable if they were intended to demonstrate Chinese sovereignty of the sea near the islands, Japan's coast guard said.

Since last year, China has been sending coast guard ships and other paramilitary vessels near or into Japanese-claimed waters around the islands on almost a daily basis, after the Japanese government bought three of the tiny islands. China viewed the purchase as a Japanese effort to bolster its claims to the islands, although Tokyo said it was trying to prevent the islands from falling into the hands of an ultranationalist politician.

China maintains that the islands were unlawfully taken from it when Japan began its empire-building in the late 19th century. Japan says it peacefully annexed empty islands that were unclaimed at the time by China or any other nation.